Their jobs—Eddie’s in law enforcement, Rob’s as the owner and publisher of Marin County’s Standard Newspapers, and Holly, his crime and gossip-loving assistant—required they each perform at their best, from the first moment of every workday to the last. By Friday evening, they decompressed from the pressure of intense workdays and a full week by swapping stories and renewing long-held bonds of friendship. All the more reason Rob and Holly were surprised when by half past five, Eddie still hadn’t arrived.

“This is a first,” Rob muttered. He looked at the display on his phone to be sure he hadn’t missed Eddie’s text or a call.

“Maybe something big came up,” Holly suggested, as she eyed Rob from over the rim a cocktail glass that contained what she called her, “Friday night liquid relief,” a very dry vodka martini. Like most weeks, the week just concluded would require more than one cocktail.

The moment Rob laid the phone back down on the small table between the three aging, dark wooden Capitan’s chairs surrounding it, his phone began to vibrate its way across the table’s fading laminate finish.

“Hang on,” Eddie said before Rob had a chance to ask where he was. “I’m on my way over there now. Wait until you hear what kept me! Tell Holly to order herself a second martini on me. She’ll need it.”

“If it weren’t a department no-no, I’d put on my light and siren to get there faster. This is a full OMG alert!”

With that, Eddie clicked off.

“Sounds like Eddie’s got some big news,” Rob declared happily as he waved down Gail, their usual waitress.

“We could use some big news. This town’s been as exciting as a cemetery these past few weeks. The only news we’ve been getting any reader comments on have been the obits.” Holly said while shaking her head in disappointment.

“The biggest story we’ve had in the past four weeks was that inebriated tourist tripping while stepping off the ferry coming in from San Francisco.”

“A tourist winding up in the water,” Holly said peering over her martini glass. We’re going to need more than that kind of excitement to keep our Sausalito edition afloat.”

“The old busybody certainly proved that,” Holly said as she glanced around Smitty’s, sniffing the air and curling her mouth into a disapproving frown. “Speaking of things that never change, how come this place still smells of cigarette smoke? It’s well over ten plus years since the state banned smoking inside of bars.”

“Give the owners time to do one of those deep steam cleanings, Holly. That will get the last of that smell out.”

“If they haven’t done it by now, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it’s not going to happen. And this old dive needs more than a steam cleaning! A new coat of paint would be a good start. Maybe that’s why it’s so empty during ‘happy hour,’” Holly added.

“Stop griping. You know why we keep coming back here.”

“I forget. Enlighten me!”

“First, nearly all the places downtown are tourist rip off joints. Second, you’ve got the No Name Bar, which has a great local vibe, but way too many nosy locals. They see the three of us together, and they figure there’s something worth overhearing. Look around at this place! It holds a few late afternoon boozers cozied up to the bar. Otherwise, it’s just wide-open space. We could be sitting here planning a bank robbery, and no one would pay any attention.”

“Yeah, it’s wide open in here until about nine every night. Then the place starts jumping,”

Holly giggled. “I know you, buddy. The quiet and private might get you in the door, but those happy hour prices are what keeps you coming back.”

Holly and Rob were so engaged in their usual banter they never noticed Eddie, walking in. Because it was one of those rare days when Sausalito’s afternoon temperature climbed into the upper 70s, he carried his suit jacket by one finger over his shoulder. He winked at Gail—his signal that he was ready for his usual, a Guinness.

Holly finally noticed Eddie. “So, what’s the big news, pal? Oh, and by the way, this is my second martini—the one you insisted on buying for me, thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome very much. Now, hold onto your seats boys and girls. This bit of news courtesy of your personal Marin County Sheriff’s Department insider—and it’s going to rock your world.” Eddie sat down and leaned in as Rob and Holly moved to the edge of their chairs. “Earlier this afternoon Henrietta Hammer was found dead in the kitchen of her Sausalito home.”

“The Hammernator’?” Holly and Rob exclaimed in shocked disbelief.

Eddie nodded. “Ding dong, the witch is dead.” he used his freshly poured Guinness to clink glasses with the two of them.

“I’ve been around you long enough to know your head doesn’t start spinning from one and a half martinis,” Eddie retorted. “I think Henrietta’s passing is what’s making you lightheaded.”

“You’re right. This is certainly ‘Oh My God’ worthy,” Rob said as he bumped fists. The two men had known each other practically all their lives. They’d met in elementary school, and became best friends as basketball teammates back in high school over twenty years ago. Putting his beer down Rob added, “As kids, all of us thought Mrs. Hammer ran on battery acid. It never occurred to me she would die one day. That seems too human a thing for her to have done.”

“Well, it’s been a while since she was our fifth-grade teacher,” Eddie said as he shook his head in amazement over how quickly time passes.

Holly shrugged. “It’s been a lot fewer years for me. I’m not nearly as old as the two of you.”

Holly pointedly ignored him by moving her chair closer to Eddie and asking, “What killed the mean old thing?”

“Some kid she made repeat the fifth grade finally went after her with an ax would be my guess,” Rob muttered.

“Nothing as messy as that,” Eddie assured them both. “Right now, we’re not sure what did her in. Probably a stroke, or heart attack. I was in my car heading back here from HQ in San Rafael when I heard the call go out for the EMTs and a couple of squad cars. I knew the address. I don’t think a kid who grew up in Sausalito had the nerve to go anywhere near that old place of hers.”

“Certainly not on Halloween,” Holly said with a smile. “It’s been a spooky looking place for as long as I can remember.”

“That old Victorian had to be the scariest place in town,” Rob added. “And it’s not as if we don’t have a bunch of creepy looking old houses in the hills above town.”

“Remember how much fun it was to scare the fourth graders by telling them that kids Hammer didn’t like were hanging as skeletons in the attic of her house?” Holly asked as she stirred her drink with a long toothpick that held three olives.

“Either that, or we would tell them about kids who were buried under her house,” Rob added.

“Great stuff,” Eddie said. “Particularly when you could make one of the second or third graders cry.”

“Yeah, those kids were scared to death of having Mrs. Hammer as their fifth-grade teacher,” Rob said, looking back on what were now distant memories. “Those were some good times,” Rob added as he dipped his drink in salute and they all clinked glasses together. Each one of them lost for a few moments in distant memories.

“I don’t think there was ever a kid that didn’t come close to wetting their pants when Henrietta pointed one of her long bony fingers and said, ‘What do you mean you don’t have your homework assignment with you,’” Eddie said. “Damn! Just saying that, makes a chill run up my spine.”

“That’s because she said it often enough to you,” Rob reminded him.

“Who found her body?” Holly asked, hungry, as always, for gruesome details.

“Hammer’s old cat, Misty,” Eddie explained.

“Huh?” Rob said, not sure he had heard correctly.

“The cat had been whining at the back door of her neighbor’s place. The neighbor is Marilyn Roswell. You both should remember her? Her husband, Mike, was the city’s director of maintenance from the time all of us were kids. He’s been retired for several years now. Up until today, I probably hadn’t seen Marilyn in years. Anyway, she finally picked up the cat and brought her back over to the house. Marilyn gets to the back screen door of Henrietta’s place and sees her sprawled across the kitchen floor with a broken teacup and a plate lying beside her. She probably had a little tea and cake and BOOM,” Eddie roared as he slapped his hand down on the small table causing their drinks to shake precariously. “Dear old Henrietta is gone, just like that,” he added snapping his fingers. “She has left us for that little red schoolhouse in the sky.”

All three sat silently for a few moments as they imagined their once fearsome teacher dying in such an ordinary way.

“Poor Marilyn,” Rob said. “The sight of old Hammer laid out like must have damn near killed her as well.”

“I think you’re right about that pal. In a complete panic, the poor thing dropped the cat and ran back to her place shouting out to her husband, ‘Call 911! Call 911!’ She still had not calmed down by the time I got there, around twenty minutes later. By then the EMT crew and two police cars had gotten there. All the rush didn’t matter; poor Henrietta was cold as a block of ice when help arrived. Probably died long before Marilyn first heard Misty meowing outside her back door.”

“How old was she?” Rob asked.

“Everyone in my class guessed she was over a hundred,” Holly recalled.

“At age ten, all of you were off by thirty or more years,” Eddie said. “The coroner got in touch with her nephew, guy by the name of Scott Silva,” Eddie checked his notepad to confirm his memory. “Marilyn met him not long ago. Nice enough guy she tells me, apparently grew up down in Pasadena. He’s a math teacher over at Marin Academy. Marilyn said Henrietta and her husband Elijah never had any children of their own.

“So there’s no chance one of her former students killed her?” Holly asked.

“Probably not. There was no evidence of a struggle, and no evidence of an intruder.”

“What about the broken cup and plate? Do you think they hit the floor with Henrietta?” Rob asked.

“That would be my guess. Likely landed there when she went down.” He grinned knowingly at his friends. “I know you two would like to get your hands on some story about a former student taking out his vengeance on the teacher all of us kids loved to hate. But I don’t think you’re going to get that lucky. Ten chances out of ten, this is just another story of a ticker gone bad or a brain vessel going pop. Spend some time hanging out at the county morgue, and you’ll see these same type of cases coming in day and night, seven days a week. Life is more fragile than most of us care to realize.”

“So is that it?” Holly asked, clearly disappointed by the routine nature of it all.

“It is for now. The coroner will do a quick check of the body, which is standard—looking for signs of injuries. They’ll also take a look at her most recent medical records. The coroner’s office will probably speak with her physician, but that’s about it: no autopsy, nothing dramatic. It’s not too suspicious when a woman near eighty or older dies suddenly. Sorry to disappoint. I know you thought it was an act of a crazed student, but by now even the last of her students are probably out of high school, and I think they’ve recovered from the slings and arrows of having had Mrs. Hammer as their fifth-grade teacher.”

“She stayed in teaching that long?” Rob asked with surprise.

“Marilyn told me she retired six or seven years ago. I suppose she liked teaching kids a lot more than kids liked having her as a teacher.”

“Well Eddie, you’ve got your theory as to how she died, and I’ve got mine,” Holly said. “Mine comes with a long list of suspects. Billy Muntz could be one.”

“Okay I’ll bite,” Eddie said. “Who in the world is Billy Muntz?”

“Muntz was in my fifth-grade class. Hammer was on his case just about every day. Muntz would come to class with incomplete homework assignments, unfinished book reports, sloppy locker; even fell asleep in class a couple of times. By the lax standards of fifth graders, we all thought Billy was a screw-up. Well, when he didn’t return to class after our Christmas break, all of us kids thought she had killed him and buried his body under her house. Maybe we were wrong. Maybe he just transferred out of the school district.”

“Gosh, ya think?” Rob said loud enough to stir two besotted ancient mariners sitting on their usual perches at the bar. “Eddie, on a more sober note, I heard the guy she was married to left her very wealthy. We did a story about him not too long ago when he passed away.”

Eddie nodded. “The husband’s name was Elijah Hammer. After the EMTs did their thing and the coroner’s staff took over to tag and bag the body, I chatted a little longer with Marilyn. She told me that Elijah was older than his wife by about five years. They had been married for nearly fifty years. He died about four months ago of liver cancer. Went fast.”

“He left her pretty well off, didn’t he?” Rob asked.

“That he did. Henrietta’s father-in-law started a tool company up in Fort Bragg. When he retired, Elijah took over. He sold the tool company many years after he moved the business down to San Francisco.”

Holly sighed. “You mean if her husband had not moved his company down here from Fort Bragg, we would have ever had Mrs. Hammer as our teacher?”

“That’s a safe bet since it’s more than three hundred miles down here and back,” Eddie replied. “Even the thrill of meeting us at age ten would likely not have been enough to entice her.”

“And after he sold the tool company, he had a second very successful career buying and selling commercial and residential real estate,” Rob added. “I put that in the story.”

“That fits with what Marilyn told me. And of course, The Hammer home is certainly worth millions by now. It’s in pretty sad shape, but it sits on a great piece of property near the top of Sausalito. Incredible views! I guarantee you, in today’s market that place is worth a lot, even as a teardown.”

“Wow!” Holly nearly choked on the last of her martini. “Millions? I would have been better off getting out of the news business and taking care of my favorite teacher in her sunset years!”

“You would have sacrificed your dignity in the hope she left you a piece of her fortune?” Rob asked.

“Sure, I’d sacrifice both of you for that kind of money. If you’re smart, a substantial bequest from a generous friend can last a lifetime.”

“You’re too kind my dear,” Eddie said with a laugh.

“She had all that money, and nowhere to go,” Rob added as he shook his head in wonder.

“Marilyn told me she was very involved with the Fine Arts Association, the Sausalito Preservation League and that nutty opera society we have here in town.”

“You mean the group that puts on all those awful opera programs down in Gabrielson Park?” Holly said as her nose wrinkled up in disgust.

Eddie laughed. “That’s the one. And don’t forget our favorite band of local do-gooders, the Ladies of Liberty. Maybe she left some or all of her money to them, or some other favorite cause—perhaps the Marin Animal Rescue Shelter. Marilyn claims she was very active with that group as well. It’s where she adopted her one faithful companion, that old gray cat, Misty.”

“Damn, I could have been her faithful companion!” Holly exclaimed with a sad look.

“Cheer up,” Rob retorted. “A good part of her fortune might go to enhance the cultural life of your community.”

“Oh goodie, just what I wanted to know. The Sausalito Opera Society will be able to continue their ‘Sunday Operas by the Bay’ for the rest of my life. Eddie, take out your gun and shoot me, shoot me now!”

Eddie shook his head adamantly. “Not in here. Too many witnesses! I’ll take you out back in the ally later on and finish you off.”

“Very funny, copper.”

“Okay you two,” Rob said jumping in. “I think we should go to Henrietta’s funeral service. It would be interesting to see who shows up. Maybe we’ll see a few classmates we haven’t seen in a long time.”

“I doubt that. Henrietta wasn’t the kind to have a lot of students who wanted to stay in touch,” Eddie said.

“I’ll go, provided it’s held close by,” Holly decided quickly. “I suppose I feel bad for Henrietta—but not bad enough to drag myself up to Petaluma, or out to Walnut Creek, or God knows where else.”

“I suspect it will be here,” Eddie said. “Mrs. Roswell said Henrietta’s husband’s service was held up at the Episcopal Church up on Santa Rosa Avenue. Chances are her service will be there as well.”

“It will be a nice change for the three of us to attend a funeral service that doesn’t involve someone who has been murdered,” Rob said.

“Very funny, you two,” Holly said as she teasingly stuck her tongue out at both of them.

“At our age, it’s a bit strange to think how terrified we all were at one point of our lives of mean old Henrietta,” Rob pointed out.

“You’re right,” Eddie agreed. “And before long, we’ll have kids of our own entering the fifth grade. It all seems pretty silly now, but old Mrs. Hammer scared the bejesus out of us back then! The last thing you wanted to hear was your name coming out of her mouth. It would make you hold your breath. And if you just got dropped off at school and your mom drove off with your homework assignment still sitting on the back seat of the car, you wanted to dig a hole and disappear into it!”

After another few moments of silent reflections, Rob wondered aloud, “Was she as bad as all that?”

Eddie and Holly looked at each other. Then in unison, they nodded and emphatically declared, “Yes!”

Rob raised the last of his beer and tipped his glass toward his two closest friends. “Here’s to one of the few people who knew how to keep the three of us in line—no small accomplishment for a woman who was probably about five-five and maybe a hundred and twenty pounds.”

“I’m sure there was a lot more to her story than we ever imagined,” Eddie said.

Holly agreed and raised a nearly empty martini glass as she declared, “To Mrs. Hammer. Now that we’re all grown up it’s time to say, ‘Henrietta, we hope you had a happy life.’”

ENTER THE TERRIFYING TEACHER LAUNCH CONTEST!

PRIZE:

3 Lucky Contestants will each with a $50 Gift Cards

RULES:

1: No purchase necessary.

2: Read the excerpt from the book, here. Then correctly answer this question:

AND YES: IF YOU'VE ALREADY ENTERED, YOU CAN ALSO SEND IN YOUR BONUS POINT REVIEW. Just do so before the deadline.

7: All CORRECT entries must be received no later than Sunday, December 23, 2018, 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time.

The drawing will take place 24 hours from that time. The winner will be contacted afterward, and have 48 hours to respond before a substitute winner is drawn.

Good luck! — Martin

THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED.

AND THE WINNERS ARE...

From Tom:

This is awesome. I love books, and when I read fiction, it's usually a mystery. I picked up your first book and the excerpt was great, so I'm sure I'll be picking up this one too. Thanks!"

From Tim:

"Wow! First time I've one anything. I'm from outside Chicago. I work in sales. I read mysteries and thrillers. My wife turned me onto your contest. I liked the excerpt enough to download the book and I'm enjoying it. I'll certainly put this gift card to good use!"

From Mary:

"Thank you! I live in Cumming, Georgia, USA, where I am the full-time helper for my mother-in-law and her treasured companion - her dog, Scout. As she is quite independent, it gives me plenty of time to do my favorite thing: read. I mostly stick with mysteries - cozies, paranormal, amateur detectives, police procedurals - with various true crime and thrillers thrown in and an occasional chick lit/romance/historical fiction to round out the pile. I guess you could say, if it has written

words, I’ll read it. I enjoyed the excerpt immensely from ‘The Terrifying Teacher.’ Three friends who have grown up together, gone to school together, shared teachers, shared experiences going on to investigate what happened to a feared but respected teacher whet my appetite so much I immediately pre-ordered it and it is the next book to read in my pile. Can’t wait to start it and will leave a review when I am finished."